The Child Labour Index 2014 evaluates the frequency and severity of reported child labour incidents, as well as the performance of governments in preventing child labour and ensuring the accountability of perpetrators. Child Labour is the employment of children(Age 5-17) in an industry or business, especially when illegal or considered exploitative.

Every year around 20,000 Eritreans aged between 17 and 50 years are forced to enrol in ‘national service’ to serve the country's political regime. Citizens are required to work for unspecified periods, in slave-like conditions, or face incarceration in Eritrea's notorious prison system, where detainees are seldom released.

The recent Human Rights Watch report titled “Hear No Evil: Forced Labor and Corporate Responsibility in Eritrea’s Mining Sector,” described the so called ‘National Service’ as “widespread exploitation of forced labor”. The report went on to say that the "National service conscripts are often subjected to torture and other abusive forms of discipline. Many are forced to endure unhealthy living conditions and paltry remuneration that equates to just a few U.S. dollars per month. Conscripts who attempt to escape face imprisonment, torture, and other forms of human rights abuse. Their family members also face harassment and reprisal"

What is being practised in Eritrea is not national service but an indefinite forced labour under conditions that are tantamount to that of slavery. National Slavery in Eritrea must stop! Full stop!!

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Slavery of Eritrean young begins when they reach high school. I did a comparison of the life of young Eritreans under Derg and shaebia. Apparently, Derg was way better than the current slave masters by the name of PFDJ.

sarcasm wrote:

sarcasm wrote:7. If you are high school student

to be continued ....................

Under derg rule: You will be able to complete high school in your hometown while living with your parents. You or (usually) your parents are also free to decide how you are going to spend your winter break by traveling to visit extended family or finding temporary winter jobs. After taking the school leaving examination in April / May ,you will be required to take part in the National Literacy Campaign by educating adults in Asmara or neighboring villages for about 4 months. If you pass the school leaving exam with high marks you will be able to continue your study in higher education institutions in Ethiopia or Asmara. If not, you will have to look for a job.

Under shaebia rule: If you want to complete high school, you have to go to sawa to complete the final year of the secondary school (grade 11); otherwise you will not complete high school. You also have to take part in the winter agricultural campaigns in July and August once you reach secondary school. That is, you are not free to travel with your family or do private work in your winter break from grade 9 - 11. The state decides where you spend your winter break and disperses the students to the villages to work in the farms.

If you complete high school with high marks, you will continue your study in the country's higher eduction institutions. If not, you will continue your military training in sawa and join the endless national service.

Therefore, high school student under derg were better off than high school students under shaebia administration.

In 2012, Eritrea made no advancement in efforts to eliminate the worst forms of child labor. While support for programs to reduce the worst forms of child labor exists, the Government continued to sponsor a national program called Mahtot, under which children in grades nine through eleven are required to work for two months during the school break in various service and agricultural activities.In addition, even though the law prohibits the recruitment of children under age 18 into the armed forces, there are children under age 18 enrolled in the Government’s compulsory military training program at the Sawa Educational Institution. Gaps in legislation also exist, including the lack of laws to prohibit trafficking for labor. Children in Eritrea are engaged in the worst forms of child labor, including in dangerous activities in agriculture and domestic service.

Eritreans are good people. but the problem remain with Tigray Shabias there who destroyed good culture of Eritrean people as well as Eritrea and its resources. Never trust Tigray politicians who kiss children and women, whose eyebrows meet in the middle.